Azerbaijan Buying Coast Guard Vessels From Israel

Azerbaijan is acquiring 12 new coast guard vessels from Israel and is discussing the possibility of buying naval corvettes, as well.

The news emerged after Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev formally opened a new shipyard for the coast guard. No mention was made publicly of the Israeli provenance of the ships, but online weapons enthusiasts and the experts at Jane's examined the photos that were released on the president's official site and came to the conclusion that these were warships -- six Shaldag Mk V patrol boats and six Saar 62 offshore patrol vessels -- that Israel had announced it was building for an anonymous customer.

In addition, posters exhibited at the event suggested that Azerbaijan was looking at a more heavily armed Israeli ship, the Saar 72 corvette.

Azerbaijan has already made other naval purchases from Israel, notably some Gabriel-5 anti-ship missiles, which became a source of tension between Azerbaijan and Iran: Tehran, fixated on Israel, mistrusts Baku's close military ties with its enemy.

That tension was reignited recently, when Iran claimed to have shot down an Israeli drone on its territory, and then blamed a "former Soviet state to the North" for launching the drone. The reference was unmistakably to Azerbaijan, but curiously Iran's ambassador to Azerbaijan then said that claims the drone was launched from Azerbaijan were not made by Iranian officials but were Israeli media disinformation. Thus far, there seems to be no word from Tehran on the news of Israeli boats on the Caspian.